hFEB Mirror

General Plan#

As hFEB becomes more played and better understood, the mirror has to be taken seriously.

Personally, this isn’t a matchup I particularly enjoy. The reason is simple: the mirror is very often decided by speed. As I often say, winning the die roll is almost equivalent to “winning turn one”, because being on the play lets you develop your plan first and forces the opponent to chase.

In Game 1, the matchup is often a race to whoever assembles the kill first. Interaction is minimal, the windows are tight, and many games come down to who finds a hand capable of closing by turn three.

The problem is that, in Game 1, you don’t always know you’re in the mirror. If you’re playing blind, you can’t realistically mulligan every hand that doesn’t have a turn-three kill. You could be against Goblins, TerraGeddon, Sligh, or another deck in the format, and a slower but solid hand might be perfectly reasonable in those matchups.

This creates the most frustrating part of the mirror: sometimes you keep a hand that’s correct against the field but too slow against hFEB, and you simply lose because the opponent was faster.

Game 1#

Whoever Is Faster Often Wins#

In Game 1 the summary is fairly brutal:

Whoever is faster often wins.

It’s not that there are no decisions, but the number of real interactions is very low. If both players are trying to assemble a fast combo, the game often comes down to:

• who won the die roll;
• who mulliganed better;
• who has acceleration;
• who can close by turn three;
• who has a Cabal Therapy at the right moment.

If you have Cabal Therapy in the early turns, you should often name Hermit Druid. It’s one of the most important cards to slow down, because it lets the opponent win quickly without needing many setup turns.

Naming Druid isn’t always perfect, but it makes sense because:

• it’s one of the cards that enables the fastest starts;
• it punishes hands built around a single threat;
• it reduces the chance the opponent closes before you do.

If instead you have no interaction, you simply have to lean on the fastest plan available in your hand.

Post-Sideboard#

Game 2 and Game 3 are slightly slower than Game 1, because both players have access to a few more cards to interact with.

That said, the matchup is still very speed-oriented. You don’t want to turn yourself into a control deck, nor dilute your combo plan too much. You just want to add interaction that hits the opponent’s main lines without compromising your ability to win quickly.

Post-board, look for hands that have both:

• disruption or interaction;
• a fast win plan.

A hand with only answers and no pressure risks losing to Survival or to a rebuilt line. A hand with only speed and no interaction can lose if the opponent is faster or has a Therapy at the right moment.

Play/Draw Post-Board#

The way you approach post-board also changes based on play/draw.

If you’re on the draw, especially if you won Game 1, expect the opponent to try to go as fast as possible. In this case you want ways to slow them down: spot removal, Cabal Therapy, answers to Survival, or cards that can interfere with Hermit Druid.

If you’re on the play, you should more often expect the opponent to keep a hand built to disrupt your plan. In this scenario you can want to be the one forcing an immediate threat: turn-one Hermit Druid, turn-one Survival, or a Therapy that protects your plan or hits theirs.

The decisions aren’t automatic. They depend heavily on the opening hand and on which role you want to take in that specific game.

Cabal Therapy in the Mirror#

Cabal Therapy is one of the few truly important pieces of interaction in the mirror.

The most common names depend on the spot, but they often include:

• Hermit Druid, if you want to slow the fastest kill;
• Volrath’s Shapeshifter or Unearth, if you’re in a position where the opponent can already assemble the line.

In Game 1, naming Hermit Druid is often the most natural choice. Post-board, the choice opens up much more because the opponent can have more interaction and more answers.

The rule stays the same as in other matchups:

Name the card that makes you lose this specific spot, not necessarily the strongest card in the abstract.

Sideboarding#

In the mirror you don’t want to sideboard too heavily.

I don’t think it’s correct, at least in most metagames, to dedicate specific sideboard slots only to the mirror, like pure graveyard hate. If the format were to shift significantly, you could reconsider including more explicit graveyard hate. But in general you don’t want to bring in cards that are too narrow just for this matchup.

What you want to do is bring in cards that are already useful elsewhere and that also have concrete applications in the mirror.

Interesting cards can be:

• Swords to Plowshares and Ghitu Slinger;
• Ray of Revelation and Naturalize;
• possibly Pyroclasm, if you want to slow down mana creatures and Hermit Druid.

The important thing is not to dilute the core of the deck too much. If you cut too many creatures or too many functional pieces, you risk becoming a deck with mediocre answers and not enough speed to close.

What to Cut#

In the mirror, you should often make small adjustments rather than radically change the deck.

For example, you can consider sideboard lines like:

• cutting a Duress to bring in Ghitu Slinger;
• cutting a Cabal Therapy to bring in Swords to Plowshares;
• cutting a less relevant card, like a wall in certain spots, to bring in Ray of Revelation;
• evaluating an answer to Survival without lowering the creature density too much.

If you bring in Pyroclasm, the idea of cutting some Birds of Paradise makes sense, but in the mirror speed remains fundamental. So you have to be careful not to slow down too much.

Cutting a land can also be an understandable choice in some configurations, because the matchup tends to be fast and you want to maximize relevant draws. That said, it’s a delicate decision: lands are still needed to double-spell, to activate Survival, and to build protected lines.

In the mirror many sideboard decisions depend on which role you want to take:

Do I want to be as fast as possible, or do I want to slow the opponent down enough to win one turn later?

Both answers can be correct.